Today, four of us from the Bourbon Society here in Louisville had a tour of Bluegrass Cooperage (now called Brown-Forman Cooperage). It was a good tour and here are a few pictures. They make over 2000 barrels a day.

There is no charge for the cooperage tour. They started doing this in April. Yes all the barrels are the same and Old Forester is put into a #3 level of char. It's interesting if you ever get the chance to go.

No, the cooperage is out by the airport across from FEDEX. The next time I am coming to Austin, I'll let you know. I try and stay away from 6th Street. Louisville is my hometown, so when I retired, I moved back here to see what it's like now. I could move back to Texas in a heartbeat.

They've added all that brand ID since they started to give public tours. Interesting.

I think there are some specification differences in the barrels they make. Woodford, I think, is the only one for which they char the barrel heads.

Brown-Forman used to supply barrels to other distilleries but now, as a general rule, they do not. It's mostly a capacity thing. They need all they can make for their own brands and to make more, they would need to do a significant expansion of the facility, or build another one, cause they've pushed that place to the limit.

Gayle,Since the barrel is stored bung up, there is very little contact with the bung so there will be no flavor added to the whiskey. Even it was so, walnut wood bungs would probably add no more flavor than a popular bung.